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Файл:Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
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TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY IN THE CEVENNES
ness of the slope, the continual agile turning of the line of
the descent, and the old unwearied hope of fi nding something new in a new country, all conspired to lend me wings.
Yet a little lower and a stream began, collecting itself together
out of many fountains, and soon making a glad noise among
the hills. Sometimes it would cross the track in a bit of waterfall, with a pool, in which Modestine refreshed her feet.
The whole descent is like a dream to me, so rapidly was it
accomplished. I had scarcely left the summit ere the valley had
closed round my path, and the sun beat upon me, walking in
a stagnant lowland atmosphere. The track became a road, and
went up and down in easy undulations. I passed cabin after
cabin, but all seemed deserted; and I saw not a human creature, nor heard any sound except that of the stream. I was,
however, in a different country from the day before. The stony
skeleton of the world was here vigorously displayed to sun
and air. The slopes were steep and changeful. Oak-trees clung
along the hills, well grown, wealthy in leaf, and touched by
the autumn with strong and luminous colours. Here and there
another stream would fall in from the right or the left, down
a gorge of snow-white and tumultuary boulders. The river in
the bottom (for it was rapidly growing a river, collecting on all
hands as it trotted on its way) here foamed a while in desperate rapids, and there lay in pools of the most enchanting seagreen shot with watery browns. As far as I have gone, I have
never seen a river of so changeful and delicate a hue; crystal
was not more clear, the meadows were not by half so green;
and at every pool I saw I felt a thrill of longing to be out of
these hot, dusty, and material garments, and bathe my naked
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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
body in the mountain air and water. All the time as I went on
I never forgot it was the Sabbath; the stillness was a perpetual
reminder; and I heard in spirit the church-bells clamouring
all over Europe, and the psalms of a thousand churches.
At length a human sound struck upon my ear – a cry
strangely modulated between pathos and derision; and looking across the valley, I saw a little urchin sitting in a meadow,
with his hands about his knees, and dwarfed to almost comical
smallness by the distance. But the rogue had picked me out as
I went down the road, from oak wood on to oak wood, driving
Modestine; and he made me the compliments of the new country in this tremulous high-pitched salutation. And as all noises
are lovely and natural at a suffi cient distance, this also, coming
through so much clean hill air and crossing all the green valley, sounded pleasant to my ear, and seemed a thing rustic, like
the oaks or the river.
A little after, the stream that I was following fell into
the Tarn at Pont de Montvert of bloody memory.
PONT DE MONTVERT
One of the fi rst things I encountered in Pont de Montvert
was, if I remember rightly, the Protestant temple; but this was
but the type of other novelties. A subtle atmosphere distinguishes a town in England from a town in France, or even in
Scotland. At Carlisle you can see you are in the one country; at
Dumfries, thirty miles away, you are as sure that you are in
the other. I should fi nd it diffi cult to tell in what particulars
Pont de Montvert differed from Monastier or Langogne, or
even Bleymard; but the difference existed, and spoke eloquently to the eyes. The place, with its houses, its lanes, its glaring
river-bed, wore an indescribable air of the South.
All was Sunday bustle in the streets and in the public-
house, as all had been Sabbath peace among the mountains.
There must have been near a score of us at dinner by eleven before noon; and after I had eaten and drunken, and sat
writing up my journal, I suppose as many more came dropping in one after another, or by twos and threes. In crossing
the Lozère I had not only come among new natural features,
but moved into the territory of a different race. These people, as they hurriedly despatched their viands in an intricate
sword-play of knives, questioned and answered me with a de-
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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
gree of intelligence which excelled all that I had met, except
among the railway folk at Chasseradès. They had open telling
faces, and were lively both in speech and manner. They not
only entered thoroughly into the spirit of my little trip, but
more than one declared, if he were rich enough, he would
like to set forth on such another.
Even physically there was a pleasant change. I had not
seen a pretty woman since I left Monastier, and there but one.
Now of the three who sat down with me to dinner, one was certainly not beautiful – a poor timid thing of forty, quite troubled at this roaring table d’hôte, whom I squired and helped to
wine, and pledged and tried generally to encourage, with quite
a contrary effect; but the other two, both married, were both
more handsome than the average of women. And Clarisse?
What shall I say of Clarisse? She waited the table with a heavy
placable nonchalance, like a performing cow; her great grey
eyes were steeped in amorous languor; her features, although
fl eshy, were of an original and accurate design; her mouth had
a curl; her nostril spoke of dainty pride; her cheek fell into
strange and interesting lines. It was a face capable of strong
emotion, and, with training, it offered the promise of delicate
sentiment. It seemed pitiful to see so good a model left to country admirers and a country way of thought. Beauty should at
least have touched society; then, in a moment, it throws off
a weight that lay upon it, it becomes conscious of itself, it
puts on an elegance, learns a gait and a carriage of the head,
and, in a moment, patet dea. Before I left I assured Clarisse of
my hearty admiration. She took it like milk, without embarrassment or wonder, merely looking at me steadily with her
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TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY IN THE CEVENNES
great eyes; and I own the result upon myself was some confusion. If Clarisse could read English, I should not dare to add
that her fi gure was unworthy of her face. Hers was a case for
stays; but that may perhaps grow better as she gets up in years.
Pont de Montvert, or Greenhill Bridge, as we might say at
home, is a place memorable in the story of the Camisards.
It was here that the war broke out; here that those southern
Covenanters slew their Archbishop Sharp. The persecution on
the one hand, the febrile enthusiasm on the other, are almost
equally diffi cult to understand in these quiet modern days,
and with our easy modern beliefs and disbeliefs. The Protestants were one and all beside their right minds with zeal
and sorrow. They were all prophets and prophetesses. Children at the breast would exhort their parents to good works.
“A child of fi fteen months at Quissac spoke from its mother’s
arms, agitated and sobbing, distinctly and with a loud voice.”
Marshal Villars has seen a town where all the women “seemed
possessed by the devil,” and had trembling fi ts, and uttered
prophecies publicly upon the streets. A prophetess of Vivarais
was hanged at Montpellier because blood fl owed from her
eyes and nose, and she declared that she was weeping tears of
blood for the misfortunes of the Protestants. And it was not
only women and children. Stalwart dangerous fellows, used to
swing the sickle or to wield the forest axe, were likewise
shaken with strange paroxysms, and spoke oracles with sobs
and streaming tears. A persecution unsurpassed in violence
had lasted near a score of years, and this was the result upon
the persecuted; hanging, burning, breaking on the wheel, had
been in vain; the dragoons had left their hoof-marks over all
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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
the countryside; there were men rowing in the galleys, and
women pining in the prisons of the Church; and not a thought
was changed in the heart of any upright Protestant.
Now the head and forefront of the persecution – after
Lamoignon de Bâvile – François de Langlade du Chayla (pronounce Chéïla), Archpriest of the Cevennes and Inspector of
Missions in the same country, had a house in which he sometimes dwelt in the town of Pont de Montvert. He was a conscientious person, who seems to have been intended by nature for
a pirate, and now fi fty-fi ve, an age by which a man has learned
all the moderation of which he is capable. A missionary in his
youth in China, he there suffered martyrdom, was left for dead,
and only succoured and brought back to life by the charity of
a pariah. We must suppose the pariah devoid of second-sight,
and not purposely malicious in this act. Such an experience, it
might be thought, would have cured a man of the desire to persecute; but the human spirit is a thing strangely put together;
and, having been a Christian martyr, Du Chayla became a Christian persecutor. The Work of the Propagation of the Faith went
roundly forward in his hands. His house in Pont de Montvert
served him as a prison. There he closed the hands of his prisoners upon live coal, and plucked out the hairs of their beards, to
convince them that they were deceived in their opinions. And
yet had not he himself tried and proved the ineffi cacy of these
carnal arguments among the Buddhists in China?
Not only was life made intolerable in Languedoc, but fl ight
was rigidly forbidden. One Massip, a muleteer, and well acquainted with the mountain-paths, had already guided several
troops of fugitives in safety to Geneva; and on him, with another
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TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY IN THE CEVENNES
convoy, consisting mostly of women dressed as men, Du Chayla, in an evil hour for himself, laid his hands. The Sunday following, there was a conventicle of Protestants in the woods of
Altefage upon Mount Bougès; where there stood up one Séguier – Spirit Séguier, as his companions called him – a wool-carder, tall, black-faced, and toothless, but a man full of prophecy.
He declared, in the name of God, that the time for submission
had gone by, and they must betake themselves to arms for the deliverance of their brethren and the destruction of the priests.
The next night, 24th July 1702, a sound disturbed the In-
spector of Missions as he sat in his prison-house at Pont de Montvert: the voices of many men upraised in psalmody drew nearer
and nearer through the town. It was ten at night; he had his
court about him, priests, soldiers, and servants, to the number of
twelve or fi fteen; and now dreading the insolence of a conventicle below his very windows, he ordered forth his soldiers to report. But the psalm-singers were already at his door, fi fty strong,
led by the inspired Séguier, and breathing death. To their summons, the archpriest made answer like a stout old persecutor,
and bade his garrison fi re upon the mob. One Camisard (for,
according to some, it was in this night’s work that they came by
the name) fell at this discharge: his comrades burst in the door
with hatchets and a beam of wood, overran the lower story of
the house, set free the prisoners, and fi nding one of them in
the vine, a sort of Scavenger’s Daughter of the place and period,
redoubled in fury against Du Chayla, and sought by repeated
assaults to carry the upper fl oors. But he, on his side, had given
absolution to his men, and they bravely held the staircase.
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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
“Children of God,” cried the prophet, “hold your hands. Let
us burn the house, with the priest and the satellites of Baal.”
The fi re caught readily. Out of an upper window Du Chayla
and his men lowered themselves into the garden by means of
knotted sheets; some escaped across the river under the bullets of the insurgents; but the archpriest himself fell, broke his
thigh, and could only crawl into the hedge. What were his refl ections as this second martyrdom drew near? A poor, brave,
besotted, hateful man, who had done his duty resolutely according to his light both in the Cevennes and China. He found at
least one telling word to say in his defence; for when the roof
fell in and the upbursting fl ames discovered his retreat, and
they came and dragged him to the public place of the town, raging and calling him damned – “If I be damned,” said he, “why
should you also damn yourselves?”
Here was a good reason for the last; but in the course of his
inspectorship he had given many stronger which all told in
a contrary direction; and these he was now to hear. One by one,
Séguier fi rst, the Camisards drew near and stabbed him. “This,”
they said, “is for my father broken on the wheel. This for my
brother in the galleys. That for my mother or my sister imprisoned in your cursed convents.” Each gave his blow and his reason; and then all kneeled and sang psalms around the body till
the dawn. With the dawn, still singing, they defi led away towards Frugères, farther up the Tarn, to pursue the work of vengeance, leaving Du Chayla’s prison-house in ruins, and his body
pierced with two-and-fi fty wounds upon the public place.
’Tis a wild night’s work, with its accompaniment of psalms;
and it seems as if a psalm must always have a sound of threat-
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TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY IN THE CEVENNES
ening in that town upon the Tarn. But the story does not end,
even so far as concerns Pont de Montvert, with the departure of
the Camisards. The career of Séguier was brief and bloody. Two
more priests and a whole family at Ladevèze, from the father to
the servants, fell by his hand or by his orders; and yet he was
but a day or two at large, and restrained all the time by the presence of the soldiery. Taken at length by a famous soldier of fortune, Captain Poul, he appeared unmoved before his judges.
“Your name?” they asked.
“Pierre Séguier.”
“Why are you called Spirit?”
“Because the Spirit of the Lord is with me.”
“Your domicile?”
“Lately in the desert, and soon in heaven.”
“Have you no remorse for your crimes?”
“I have committed none. My soul is like a garden full of shelter
and of fountains.”
At Pont de Montvert, on the 12th of August, he had his right
hand stricken from his body, and was burned alive. And his
soul was like a garden? So perhaps was the soul of Du Chayla,
the Christian martyr. And perhaps if you could read in my soul,
or I could read in yours, our own composure might seem little
less surprising.
Du Chayla’s house still stands, with a new roof, beside one of
the bridges of the town; and if you are curious you may see
the terrace-garden into which he dropped.
IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN
A new road leads from Pont de Montvert to Florac by
the valley of the Tarn; a smooth sandy ledge, it runs about
half-way between the summit of the cliffs and the river in
the bottom of the valley; and I went in and out, as I followed it,
from bays of shadow into promontories of afternoon sun. This
was a pass like that of Killiecrankie; a deep turning gully in
the hills, with the Tarn making a wonderful hoarse uproar
far below, and craggy summits standing in the sunshine high
above. A thin fringe of ash-trees ran about the hill-tops, like
ivy on a ruin; but on the lower slopes, and far up every glen,
the Spanish chestnut-trees stood each four-square to heaven
under its tented foliage. Some were planted, each on its own
terrace no larger than a bed; some, trusting in their roots, found
strength to grow and prosper and be straight and large upon
the rapid slopes of the valley; others, where there was a margin to the river, stood marshalled in a line and mighty like cedars of Lebanon. Yet even where they grew most thickly they
were not to be thought of as a wood, but as a herd of stalwart
individuals; and the dome of each tree stood forth separate
and large, and as it were a little hill, from among the domes of
its companions. They gave forth a faint sweet perfume which
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